Many activities of daily living are difficult not only for the physically handicapped, but also for others whose full range of motion is either minimally restricted or difficult to achieve. Such activities as dressing and undressing are extremely difficult for persons who cannot bend forwardly at the waist, move either or both of their lower extremities or use one of their upper extremities, the latter due to disability or restriction of the use of one or more of the shoulder, upper arm, forearm, wrist or hand.
For instance, as simple a task as donning or removing a stocking is difficult enough one-handed, but nearly impossible if one cannot easily bend forwardly at the middle or move the leg either in its entirety or at the knee. Persons who have restricted movement of the lower spine due to age, disease, trauma or obesity find it difficult to reach their feet even if the hip and knee joints are mobile and the leg musculature functional. Even if fully flexible at the waist, it is difficult to reach the feet if both the hips and knees are not fully mobile and the leg musculature functional. Any combination of disabilities of the lower spine, upper spine, hip and knee joints and leg, back or abdominal muscles can make such tasks as donning and removing shoes, stockings, hose and trousers extremely difficult even with fully functioning upper extremities. If, in addition, one of the upper extremities has limited function or range of motion, the problem is compounded in the extreme.
Persons who suffer from lack of mobility due to any reason, not only need assistance to dress and undress, but also obtain or manipulate a wide variety of articles such as telephone receivers, light pull chains or toggle switches, eating utensils, cups, glasses (drinking and optical), reading material and any other article or utensil which is just beyond arms reach. Merely by way of illustration, while lying in bed or on a sofa, a paraplegic may be unable to reach a telephone, drinking glass, cosmetic jar, reading material and the like on a nearby table. The wheelchair-bound homemaker may find it difficult to reach cooking utensils, food cartons, cans and the like just beyond reach from the wheelchair.
A working environment presents as many problems at the home. Clothes must be removed and put on and articles grasped though just beyond arms reach due to limitation of mobility.
Achieving mastery of activities of daily living, maintenance of the home and usefulness in the work environment is essential to both physical and psychological rehabilitation.
A wide variety of adaptive devices have been devised for the physically handicapped. However, in many instances they are useful only under limited circumstances and not useful for a wide variety of physical disabilities for a wide variety of purposes. No single device is available to assist the handicapped or physically restricted to don and remove shoes, stockings, hose, pantyhose, underwear and trousers and at the same time be useful to grasp such devices as telephone receivers, light chains and toggle switches, drinking and eating utensils, small boxes, cartons and bags.
It is among the objects and advantages of the present invention to provide a manually operable, multi-functional, personal convenience implement to assist in donning and removing shoes, stockings, hose, pantyhose, underwear and trousers as well as grasp small articles such as telephone receivers, light switches and chains, drinking and eating utensils, small jars, boxes, cartons, bags and dispensing tubes, jewelry and other personal items, and even to scratch the back.
Another object and advantage of the present invention is to provide an implement as aforesaid which can be assembled easily and quickly from injectionmolded plastic parts which are durable and can be cleaned and disinfected without damage.